Client and Family Satisfaction With Brief Community Mental Health, Substance Abuse, and Mobile Crisis Services in an Urban Setting

Examining implementation of mobile, police-mental health crisis intervention teams in a large urban center

“…Other evaluations have found relatively high levels of satisfaction with the service teams among consumers, families, and program stakeholders (Baess, 2005;Forchuk et al, 2010;Ligon & Thyer, 2000;Scott, 2000), but have encountered challenges with team capacity to respond to calls related to staffing issues, long wait times in emergency departments, and education of police officers on appropriate mental health response (Baess, 2005;Forchuk et al, 2010). Our results extend these findings and highlight additional key components that must be put in place to improve implementation and program outcomes.…”

“…Implementation evaluation verifies what the program is and whether or not it is being delivered as planned to the targeted recipients (McDavid & Hawthorn, 2006). Prior research has found that program stakeholders, consumers and family members have positive ratings of satisfaction with coresponse programs, though implementation challenges have also been noted (Baess, 2005;Forchuk et al, 2010;Ligon & Thyer, 2000;Scott, 2000). These challenges relate to the need for greater police education on mental health and addictions, long wait times in the Emergency Department, limitations in team response time and availability due to inadequate staffing and access to appropriate vehicles, and communication with police dispatch staff (Baess, 2005;Forchuk et al, 2010).…”

Co‐responding police–mental health programmes: Service user experiences and outcomes in a large urban centre

“…Our qualitative findings examining service users’ experiences of police and co‐responding team crisis interactions corroborate and expand upon earlier reports of satisfaction with co‐responding teams (Kisely et al . ; Ligon & Thyer ). Consistent with the broader crisis‐response literature, service users identified several factors that contributed to a positive experience, including responders’ de‐escalation skills, knowledge of mental health challenges and available resources, and an empowering and compassionate approach (Kirst et al .…”

“…An unpublished report identified more rapid handovers in the emergency department (ED); however, in the absence of methodological information, it is difficult to draw firm conclusions from this work (Baess 2005). In addition to these outcomes, numerous studies have found that service users feel respected and supported by coresponding teams (Forchuk et al 2010;Kirst et al 2015;Kisely et al 2010;Ligon & Thyer 2000), resulting in positive care experiences.…”

Helping Persons with Mental Illness: Partnerships between Police and Mobile Crisis Units

“…The few empirical evaluations that have been conducted found generally positive effects for MCUs such as higher satisfaction rates by PMI and their support persons served by MCUs (Ligon & Thyer, 2000) and greater levels of engagement in follow-up treatment (Kiseley et al, 2010). Additionally, studies have shown a decline in psychiatric hospital admissions with the use of MCUs (Bengelsdorf, Church, Kaye, Orlowski, & Alden, 1993;Guo et al, 2001;Reding & Raphelson, 1995;Scott, 2000).…”